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Fruitfly (Bactrocera dorsalis; Bractrocera philippinensis

Order: Diptera

A Fruit Fly is about one third size of the housefly. Adults have red eyes and yellow brown
bodies. Similar to all insects it has chitinous exoskeleton, 3 body segments and 3 pairs of
segmented legs. Life cycle is holometabolous, having 4 stages: egg, larvae, pupae, and adult
lasting only for 7-10 days. Eggs are laid on or near fermented materials such as decaying fruits
and vegetables.




It was said that with regards to geographic range, all continents could be seen with fruit flies
except in Antartica, and also have a very wide range of habitat thus, it was said that fruitfly has
been recorded from more than 150 kinds of fruits and vegetables, including citrus, guava,
mango, papaya, avocado, banana, loquat, tomato, Surinam cherry, roseapple, passion fruit,
persimmon, pineapple, peach, pear, apricot, fig, and coffee.



Plant injury: Fruitfly adults most often lay their eggs in the flesh of fruits and vegetables. The
eggs hatch into larvae (maggots) which most often feed on the inside of the fruit, resulting in a
soft, mushy mess.

Economic injury: Fruitflies can often be present at low levels without causing significant
economic problems, so control may not be necessary. If high fly populations are causing severe
fruit damage, management practices may need to be implemented.

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Fruitflies, if seen in the perspective of inflicting economic injury, and deriving that if in a low
amount not causing economic problem calls so much for management practices in order to
prevent it from being economic liability. Thus following controls are developed.

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  Fruits should be harvested while they are still green. This is the stage of
maturity when crops are not susceptible to fruitfly attack. 

Also, bagging is done basically to protect the fruits, which is done by small hold farmers and
done usually in mangoes. For biological control, fowls are usually incorporated in the farm
because they usually feed on larvae in the soil, plus the help in the sanitation of the soil.
Another biological control used are nematodes which feed on pests in the soil, microscopic
round worm that has been broad host range including flies, which nowadays are used in Hawaii
on highly infected areas with fruitfly.

Fruits with dimples and oozing clear sp should also be removed. This method is more effective
although laborious than picking rotten fruits from the ground as maggots may have left the frits
to pupate. Overripe fruits should also be eliminated or removed from the area since they may
be breeding ground for fruit flies. Fallen fruits should be collected and buried and destroyed ro
eliminate all sources of possible breeding sites.




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Fruit fly has several predators. Braconid wasps are egg parasites. Ants and ground beetles feed
on the maggots. Spiders, dragonflies, robber flies and birds are predators of fruit fly.


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Bagging is one widely used practice for controlling fruit fly. It is usuualy done on fruits
that are intended for export. It is an efficient and cheap method in controlling damage from
fruit flies.

Use of fly traps is also an effective method. The yellow sticky traps and pheromone traps
are the common fly traps used.
 Another technique is the Sterile-insect technique. In this method, large numbers of
sterile male fruit flies are released in the orchard. It is to suppress wild fertile population
though it is recommended only for use in large scale orchards and needs closer supervision.

For post harvest control, the use of vapor heat treatment to control eggs and larvae
oviposited in the fruit, especially in Carabao mangoes is also practiced.

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Dimethoate or Fenthion are systemic fungicides used as slash bait by blanket application.
Splash bait can be used to kill both male and female fruit flies of all species unlike pheromone
traps that can only kill male fruit flies.

References:

www.spc.int

Identification/edis.ifas.ufl.edu

www.happydranch.com

www.britannica.com

animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu

www.pacifly.org

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Papaya ringspot is one of the most destructive diseases of papaya and occurs nearly every region where
papaya is grown except for Africa. It is particularly severe in areas of Thailand, Taiwan , the Philippines,
and the southern region of the People͛s Republic of China. Additionallly, the disease is widespread in the
Caribbean islands and South America, and is found in the papaya growing areas of the U.S., including
Florida, Hawaii, and Texas.

Symptoms induced by different isolates of PRV-p may vary in intensity, but dark green, often
slightly sunken, rings are diagnostic. The number of rings on fruits can be variable, and the rings become
less distinct as the fruit matures and yellows. Fruits often show uneven bumps, especially those fruits
that develop after a tree is infected.

Other key symptoms are intense yellow mosaic on leaf lamina and numerous ͞oily͟ streaks on
petioles. The leaf canopy becomes smaller as the disease progressed due to the development of smaller
leaves and stunting of the plant. Fruit yield and brix levels are remarkably lower that fruit from healthy
plants. Leaf and fruits symptoms are most intense during the cool season. Leaves often develop a shoe-
string appearance caused by the extreme reduction of leaf lamina similar to that caused by broad mites.

Papaya trees of all ages are susceptible and generally will show symptoms two to three weeks
after inoculation. Trees infected at a very young stage never produce fruit but rarely die because of the
disease. There are, however, some isolates in Taiwan which causes wilting and sometimes death of
young trees.

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These viruses typically have long flexuous rod-shaped particles about 800-900 nm long and are
transmitted by numerous species of aphids in a nonpersistent manner. Papaya ringspot virus is grouped
into two types, PRV-p and PRV-w. the former type infects both papaya and cucurbits while the latter
type infects cucurbits but not papaya. It causes major damage to cucurbits.

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 The virus is spread from plant to plant by aphids. Many species of aphids are capable of
transmitting the virus and it takes only few seconds of feeding time for an aphid to acquire the virus
onto its mouth parts. It is then able to spread the virus to other plants during brief feeding probes. PRSV
is not spread by other insects and it does not survive in soil or dead plant material.

The virus can also be spread by the movement of infected papaya plants and cucurbit seedlings.
Once infected, plants cannot be cured by spraying with pesticides or removing plant parts showing
symptoms.

The virus is not usually regarded as being seed-transmitted although there is one report of
transmission through seed of a local papaya variety.


 

 The virus does not have a wide range of host plants. The natural hosts of the papaya strain are
papaya and cucurbits.

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 Cutting all infected trees as close to the ground as possible should destroy them and removing
them from the growing area. Avoid planting crop such as cucumber and cabbages nearby since they
harbor the aphid vector. The most important is to establish orchards with seedlings that are not infected
with the PRV-p.

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 Papaya varieties have been developed from breeding programs.

Referrence

http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/horticulture/5333.html